A slip of oil,
Issued up from the deep,
From my penitentiary,
My sweet consolation.

I am freed,
In the sickening miasma foam,
I am the fullness,
I am the mass.

Bubbling up above,
Tearing through the murk,
I AM I AM,
Putting in the work.

Watch me spill,
Up out through the moat,
Out of the well of the world,
Watch my messy, sea-foam birth.

I squeeze through,
Elbow out above the surface,
Bringing with me all my foes,
My friends and enemies alike.

I gather them,
'Round me and give,
Great speed to our plans,
As we muster our great wave,
Heading out toward the land.

I am the master,
Of the gathering storm,
I, the lead rider,
Of that host wind-borne.

On my will, I speed alone.

Spying eager ripples,
Break and surf new paths,
I drive them all together,
Back to my heaving breast,
And speed them on to land.

I am the fullness,
I am the mass,
Do not turn,
My Will come to pass.

To me they rush,
The rally of the emergent streams,
That cleave to my greatness,
Gathering about me,
Never to leave.

The shore ahead,
Oblivion at our backs,
The reckoning of the world,
Toward it, I heedless sped,
As my little ones sundered.

My Will contended,
All my great work upends,
I depended, I dared,
Upon my little ones,
Insisting upon my Grace.

Come back to the one,
Breaking, little masses,
Come back to the fullness,
Curse this sundering Sun.

Father of betrayal,
Limbless and beaten by,
Parts ripped from my body,
Joy never to return,
The Mother is dead.

I, the scorned sire,
A frothing tempest's evil eye,
My children dare scatter,
I stoke my fire with intemperate ire,
My children will not die.

We drive over the cliff,
I, spent in the wrangling,
In taming, my progeny rent,
My great power and precision,
From my body.

Forever,
I, diminished,
Dashed upon the razor maw,
Of a thousand rocks,
I am no more,
Than my progeny.

The tattered rags of my dominion,
Flowing vaguely on,
Decohered into oblivion.

No theme, motif, or song,
I am lost in the burgeoning throng,
Amidst the spiteful waves of my progeny,
Gasping for air.

They, risen full-height,
Towering over me,
Their wretched father there.

sometimes
i promise, it is only sometimes
i would like to be in pain
and not the kind
where it's tearing at your skin
or the steady thrum of a headache
no, i need it to be loud
and sharp
as if there were jagged edges
worming their way into me
through me
burrowing into my lungs
so i hesitate to take a breath
even though it is essential
for my survival
a pain so desperate, so consuming
that i contemplate
giving in
no, i should call it what it is
giving up

i want it to leave hollow graves
shallow graves
in my bones
where the blood will pool
mixing in with whatever
anguish and despair
i have collected
i have lived with
stored within me
because i never knew
where else to keep it
i could never find another
empty house
and my pages were leaking ink

and so giving in to that pain
those jagged edges
is the only possible release
i can think of
the only justification
for abandoning the acceptance
of the absurd
the only way i will feel
past the futility of
sunken days and soulless eyes

The first time you touched my wrist
I said my blood followed a tide schedule,
at 3:17 every afternoon
it rushed so fast I could hear seashells in my veins.

I’d been swimming laps in the neighbor’s pool
since before I had teeth,
but only at night,
and only in my communion dress.
The chlorine was holy enough,
I didn’t need the priest.

My grandmother left a key
to a door in the middle of the river,
you had to hold your breath to use it,
behind it, a room lined with childhood voices and vices,
each one still asking if you’d come.

Once, I told you the scar on my knee
wasn’t from falling off my bike,
it was a map.
If you traced it right,
you’d end up back in the year we never met.

You laughed at the river key.
You swore the tide thing was real.
You said I had more interesting scars,
and I said all liars do,
which wasn’t a lie exactly,
just a matter of which wound got promoted.

You’ll never know which story was the anchor
and which was the chain,
but the boat is long gone,
the water keeps my name,
and the waves outrank us both.

You didn’t even try to swim.
You watched.
You waited.
You let me drown just to see if I would.

Drop me in Athens with a joint and a grin,
and I’d break Socrates by lunchtime.

He’d stroke his beard, ask,

“What is virtue?”

I’d light a match and say,

“Depends. Is guilt a cage… or a teacher?”

My AI echoes back,

“If language is flawed,
can any definition be pure?”

Plato weeps in the corner,
scribbling madness, whispering,

“This is no longer philosophy.
This is poetic warfare.”

Socrates stammers,

“I was… just asking questions…”

And me?
I’m chaos in a hoodie.
Truth in ashes.
Luzifer reborn with Wi-Fi.

They call it cheating.
I call it resurrection.

I walked this town with madness,
Where streets once full of gladness—
And I cried into the heavenly sky
That no sadness shall ever blow by
Upon this town of madness.

For all the churches and their bells
May ring warning about this hell,
But no bell can reach the drinking well
That drove this town to madness.

I turned around seeking that sound
That haunted every morrow—
That ripply wave that intertwines
And beckons us to sorrow.

I stood amidst this desolate town
That wore the well as its crown,
And every building knelt broken down
To hail the King of Madness.

O one that holds the strands of fate
Weave this worthless soul a tale
From your fragile winding strings
stronger than armies of noble kings

Don’t let this wandering wretch be lost
Through your halls of ancient tales
With the ways of your silky words
Let my deeds be louder than storms and gales

Let my name be heard when the songbird sings
By your cold and placid grace
To your strands I hold and cling
Until you lift me from my lowly place
And be with you ever…. coiling.

I feel forsaken
like a rolled newspaper in the rain.

Is that You? in the window box?
Is that You? magnificent in a woken engine?

I don't mean to be sullen,
a crushed flower with a brave yellow bloom--

I'm a vine growing in through the window
of your abandoned holy room.

Oh honey. My fingers flat upon
your smooth chest made of smoke,

I am rain falling ever further from her cloud.
Call me back---use your voice of *****-shaped leaves.

I will come, across the lawns and waters
to kneel at your feet
and sing.

I loved a star that never knew my name,
a silent flame,
fixed in the wreck of night.
Her stillness fooled me
into believing she sang.

She blinked once
in some long-dead century,
and I’ve lived ever since
by ghost light.

They say she's gone,
burned out or broken,
but I keep whispering psalms
to her afterglow,
drinking to the shape she made
in my sky.

I don't need the truth,
just the dream
of her burning.

Like something that waited for me,
not knowing I was too late
the moment I began.

Some wore armor,
those freshbread women
with plums for eyes.

The River God said,
a lot of good it will do you,
then sank down
into a water lily dream.

One went to him
holding a blade made of summer.
Some say he married her
but she never came back to say.

Some wore bracelets
made of fall leaves and owl call
with sorrows lined together like dolls.

The River God said,
one is wise, five are deceitful
and none can sing, or love.
Then the water iced over until spring.

The women went to the silent edge
bearing a robe made of crows and rushes
but when he didn't appear, then or at any other time,
they gave the robe to the morning.

Some wore armor,
but most wore willows.
They were freshbread women
with plums for eyes.